Should you put prices on your website?
Every job is different, so I cannot put prices on the site. It is the most common thing I hear, and it is entirely true.
It also costs you work, because the person reading is not asking what the job costs. They are asking whether you are in their world at all.
What happens when there are no prices
Someone with a job to do opens four websites. Three say 'contact us for a quote'. One says a bathroom refit usually runs between £4,000 and £7,000 depending on the tiling.
They ring the fourth one first. Not because it is cheapest — they have no idea whether it is — but because it is the only one that told them anything.
The other three get the calls from people ringing round for the lowest number, which is exactly the customer nobody wants.
You are not quoting, you are filtering
The point of a number on the site is not accuracy. It is to send away the person with £800 who was hoping for a full refit, before either of you spends an evening on it.
Every quote you write for someone who was never going to book is an hour of your life. A rough figure on the site does that filtering while you are on a roof.
Ways to show prices without being held to them
- A from price. From £120 for a call-out including the first hour.
- A range with the reason. £4,000–7,000 for a bathroom, depending mostly on the tiles and whether the floor needs levelling.
- A recent job. Three-bed semi in Ashby, full rewire, five days, £3,400. Concrete, obviously not a promise.
- A calculator. Enter the rooms, get a range. Works well where the price genuinely does follow a formula.
- What is included. Sometimes more useful than the number itself — scaffolding, waste, VAT, making good.
Where it genuinely does not work
Some trades really cannot. If every job starts with a survey and the range is £2,000 to £60,000, a number on the page is noise.
Even then you can say something useful: what the survey costs, whether it comes off the job, and what the smallest job you take on looks like. That is still more than 'contact us'.
The line that does the work
Whatever numbers you show, add one sentence saying what could change them. 'The price is firm once I have seen it. What moves it is usually access and whether the old one has to come out.'
That sentence is what makes people trust the figure — because it admits the figure has limits, and nobody expects that.
Common questions
Won’t my competitors just undercut me?
They can already ring you as a customer and find out. What publishing does is stop you competing only on price, because the page can also say what is included and why you are worth more than the cheapest quote.
What if someone holds me to an old price?
Put a date on it and call it a guide. 'Prices as at August 2026, confirmed after a look at the job.' Then keep it current — a price list three years out of date does more harm than none at all.
Should I show an hourly rate?
Only if you actually charge by the hour. An hourly rate on a job you price as a whole invites people to do arithmetic about how fast you work, which is a conversation nobody wins.
Do I have to include VAT?
If you are VAT registered and selling to the public, prices should be shown inclusive. Selling business to business you can show them exclusive, as long as it clearly says so.
Want to see what yours would look like?
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